Province promises to cut ER wait times


ctvcalgary.ca

The province is promising to cut the wait times patients are experiencing in overcrowded emergency rooms by implementing benchmarks recommended by emergency room doctors.

"The sickest patients are seen first in the ER regardless of when they arrive. Patients will register, be seen, and admitted in eight hours. By admitted, we mean transferred to a ward in the hospital where they can be cared for appropriately," says Dr. Paul Parks with the Alberta Medical Association.

ER physicians have asked for a maximum eight-hour wait in the ER for a patient needing admission to the hospital and a maximum four-hour wait for people who need to be treated but not admitted.

Doctors from the Alberta Medical Association recently complained to the province, saying over-crowding was nearing catastrophic proportions.

Seriously ill patients were waiting hours to be seen because ER beds were being used by other, less critical patients, waiting to be admitted to the hospital.

Keren Behar's husband experienced these long wait times. Not long ago, her husband woke up with a crippling headache. They rushed to the ER but were stunned when they got inside.

"I felt like I was in a third world country or a war-torn zone with a line up of injured people waiting to be seen. I didn't think I was in Calgary, Alberta in a teaching hospital," she says.

It took over 12 hours for the Behars to be seen.

Alberta Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky says he expects those new rules to be fully in place by Christmas.

Some doctors say there needs to be more accountability at the hospital level to actually see wait times go down. Managers need the authority and the impetus to act and find spaces for patients when they are needed.

But the health minister's promise to improve things is ringing hollow with many people who said they've heard this before.

Critics say the province already promised shorter wait times a long time ago and it's not chipping any more money to make the system more efficient.

"This is very reactionary. No new money in dealing with the problem and on it goes. We have empty promises from our government," says David Eggen with Friends of Medicare.